


i'm like a rubber band, until you pull too hard

by bettercrazythanboring



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettercrazythanboring/pseuds/bettercrazythanboring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They always said the grief would never end, not really—but if it was born out of a lie, does she have to start that eternity all over again once the deception falls away?</p><p> <i>(Or: Jade finds out what really happened to her mother.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm like a rubber band, until you pull too hard

**Author's Note:**

> [Title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es) (Well, actually, [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdgKYLmjghc), but I ended up listening to both versions a lot while writing this.) Written for the [ficathon](http://blevins.livejournal.com/32008.html?thread=717576#t717576).
> 
> Heavy spoilers for issue 45.

You should be surprised, you think—when a step that doesn't feel like a step, and another that feels more like falling asleep both bring you through the blinding white light at the end of the Academy's basement tunnel and right into Paddy's Diner. You should feel a jolt of pain, of regret, of incredible guilt so heavy you can't even move under the weight of it all, at the sight of that red hair in a ponytail and a mouth shaped exactly like yours. You should instantly try to rip her out of this memory and take her back with you, solid, warm, and  _alive_ —because surely, surely you  _could_ , if you just wanted to enough.

But you don't. Not anymore.

She's been in far too many of these dreams that aren't really dreams, memories that never happened and aren't even yours; you know by now that that's not how any of this works, so you take a milkshake from the counter—your favorite flavor, vanilla topped off with cheerios—and sip it as you obediently tiptoe to your mother's booth and sit down on the side of it, on a chair that hadn't been there a second ago.

"You've seen it before, haven't you? You know what she is," she says to a dark-haired woman who must be either blind, in the Secret Service, or just plain rude. (Your memories of this establishment may have faded, but you're quite sure there's a "NO SUNGLASSES" sign out front.)

The sound of your mother's voice no longer fills you with yearning, and emptiness, and self-hatred, and a million other things you've always been afraid to name. Instead it just makes you sad, because this is the way things are now, because those things don't, can't,  _were never_  going to include her… because accepting that feels too much like giving up. (Wasn't divinity supposed to be this powerful, paradise-making thing? All those childhood cartoons, late-night supernatural shows you were too young for but watched anyway, hell, even bible studies—you never imagined how  _lonely_  it would be. How little it differs from being human at all—but then, were you ever human to begin with?)

And then she starts screaming, starts yelling, spews all the deepest fears you've harbored in the crevices of your soul, about what you are, about the things you can do—fears that you hadn't noticed until now had been planted there by your mother herself only a few years ago and yet had been there always, because that's just how time works now—and suddenly her voice cuts you like razors, suddenly you can feel your arms bleeding even though there's not a scratch on them.

"I  _felt_  it, when I came back—it was evil. Nothing but  _pure evil_."

This is wrong. It's all wrong. You had almost forgotten the conviction her words were always carried by, like royalty in a sedan chair. Oh, God, you need to get out of here. You will not allow yourself to remember her like this.

The scene unfolds without interruption (you're invisible here, and maybe you've always been, in the bigger picture) as you push the chair backwards hard enough that it topples and hits the ground before you even manage to get up. You wait for it to disappear or meld into something else, or do whatever things that aren't real are supposed to do when gods stop needing to perceive them, but the other woman—the one you've never seen before, the one who was trying to buy your mother's love—speaks before you can run away.

"…I won't  _force_  you to treat your daughter—who I happen to know from  _personal experience_  is one of the most special, kind, and truly  _loyal_  human beings you…"

How would she know that, you think bitterly. "Special" you can give her—grudgingly, because she seems like the Academy type and those people have always been more concerned with killing you than daring to imagine that perhaps you're not actually  _useless_ —but what the fuck does  _she_  know about your kindness or your loyalty? She is a stranger, she is one of  _them_ ; she wouldn't know kindness if it bit her in the ass and then apologized for it. Has she been  _stalking_  you? (Have they  _always_  been in your life? Was your life  _ever_  your own?)

And then she says the unthinkable.

You watch in horror as your mother's face goes blank and agreeable; your gaze bounces back and forth between them as the stranger rattles off instructions in that strange tone—you  _know_  that tone, that's the one Hodge uses whenever something doesn't go her way—and hands her a thick rope.

The razors on your arms and scars in your heart forgotten almost instantly, you can't stop yourself from yelling after the back of Mary Beth's red overalls as she leaves for her death.

"Mom!" you scream. " _Mom!_  Come back!" You run after her, but nothing around you seems to move. She just gets farther and farther away while you might be going backwards. "Don't do this,  _please!_ " you beg, willing her to  _listen_  for damn once. "I need you…"

Tears well up in your eyes, for the first time in what feels like years.

" _Momma!_ "

"She can't hear you, you know," says a voice behind you, and you suddenly realize your mother is no longer in the doorway, hasn't been for some time. (She's gone.  _Again_.)

Your whirl around; the woman in an official-looking pantsuit has stood up and begun to gather her papers. You stand, frozen, until it clicks that  _she_ , apparently,  _can_ , and then— " _You!_ " you shout at the very top of your lungs. A waitress passes you with no alarm. "You  _killed_  her! How  _could_  you?!"

"I'm sure you know as well as I do that your mother killed  _herself_ , Jade," Danielle Clarkson says without looking at you.

"But you  _ordered_  her to!" you cry. "What kind of monster—?"

"It was for a better future," she says simply and lays a hand on your shoulder. You recoil as though from a snake. "I— I hope you understand that one day. I had hoped to change things this time, to give you a few more precious years of happiness before your powers would be awakened by the death of a parent, but, well— She simply didn't  _want_  to be your mother. And you didn't  _need_  her to be anything  _else_ ," she says. (It sounds far too logical and calculated to not have been rehearsed. This was planned.)

You rub the tops of your arms, heart beating against your ribs like a savage. "I thought she  _killed herself_  because of me. All this time, I thought it was  _my_  fault."

"And that served its purpose," she says, in a manner so calm that you want to close your arms around her neck and just  _squeeze,_  until you find out which end of hers is the first to explode. "It made you question your beliefs, your habits, even your faith… But now you  _know_  better. And you also know that resurrection doesn't always  _have_  to end in doom. It simply worked out that way this time."

"My mother…" you whisper, only half-listening. "My mother is dead…  _still_  because of me. She was  _murdered_ … because of  _me!_ "

"So was mine," Clarkson says and takes her sunglasses off in a gesture of sympathy. "I know your anger, I know your pain; I'd tell me to go to hell too." There's a sadness in her eyes that even you can recognize when she says, "At least  _your_  grief is no longer fresh upon learning this truth. Not all of us are so lucky." She halts, waiting for you, but "lucky" is the _farthest_ adjective in the phone book of things you feel right now. "Jade, I know you'll eventually see how much pain you were spared today," she interjects suddenly. "I can only wish that, when that time comes, you can forgive me."

You take a step closer, so close that she has to shrink in size to allow space for your fury.

"Fuck.  _You_."

"Understood." She slides past you and takes her briefcase off the table—then turns back with a small furrow between her brows. "Just… be careful. You have a penchant for getting into deathly situations, and you're quite… valuable."

"You don't even  _know_  me, bitch."

Her gaze lowers and she flashes half a smile, so quick you might've dreamed it up like the rest of this place, and then, somehow, something about this face—a face that looks indescribably  _wrong_  on a member of the faculty—unlocks something within you, a knowledge you're not yet ready to put into words, might never be. "You'd be surprised," is all she says before this vibrant scene with the clatter of utensils and the smell of fries disappears around you for strong arms to take its place.

You feel them softly shaking you.

"Jade.  _Jade_ ," a voice to go along with the hands pulls you from the depths of your unconscious. You see Casey's bright blue eyes, twisted in a concerned grimace above you, for maybe half a second before you very narrowly avoid puking in her lap.

" _Nnngh._ " You scramble for the glass on your nightstand as soon as it's over, hoping viciously that Pamela hasn't thought to put anything in it while you were sleeping.

Casey—tough, compassionate Casey; leader, savior Casey—brushes your hair back and checks your clammy forehead. "Hey, how are you feeling? You were crying in your sleep," she says, then adds, as an afterthought: "In between, like, thrashing and screaming and such; no wonder you missed your alarm. Are you okay?"

You push yourself up on your elbows and, after cautiously cracking open your eyelids, find the room, along with everyone in it, to be spinning. "It's those pills Hodge gave me. They were supposed to stop my vomiting, but I think they've got the green stuff in them," you say, clutching your head and trying to remember what the question that had just been on the tip of your tongue was—the one that had felt like a matter of life and death in the split second on the brink of consciousness. "Casey…"

"Yeah. I'm here." She strokes your arm in her half-buttoned blouse and limp tie, hair still damp from her morning shower. A brown eyeliner, still with the cap on, hangs from her fingers. (Concerned, friendly Casey.) "Do you need anything?"

"No, I… I…" You let out another groan and pull the question out of the ether by sheer force of will. "Have you ever heard of… someone named Clarkson?"

Her face sours immediately, almost as though she were in physical pain. "Yeah, I… She was my teacher, back home. My  _favorite_  teacher, actually," she admits, not without a degree of shame. "Which— _of course_  she was, because her freakin'  _job_  was to get close to me and convince me to come here, and, hey, since when does the Academy ever send anyone but the  _best_ , right?"

Her diamond-hard snort cuts at you. "The best." Your mother never stood a chance against that. _  
_

(Did _you_ ever stand a chance?)

"Yeah, but… Anyone ever tell you she kinda looks like you a li'l?"

"Oh, fuck,  _all_  the time," Casey says, sitting back, and runs a hand through her golden curls with a groan of her own. "It was really annoying. Her boyfriend—I mean  _husband_ ; he's a History teacher, surprisingly cute—he once tried to persuade us to hire a professional genealogist to uncover supposed hidden family connections. My mom almost bought into it, after basically  _months_  of Dad casually pestering her, but Clarkson never did and wouldn't agree to share hers." Her lips contort into a pout at the same time as her eyes give an elegant roll. "The weirdest thing is, someone I didn't even  _know_  once claimed that she had triangle-shaped mole on her right shoulder, the same place where I—"

You see it on her face then, that flicker of doubt and realization and horror and a million other things you're too tired to go digging in her feelings for. "Wait, you don't thi—" She gasps, gaze somewhere far away, and that's all the confirmation you need to pull the discarded woolen blanket on the side of the bed back up to your chin, turn away from Casey Blevins, and shut your eyes as tight as they will go, so that not a single tear could escape—not now, not ever.

She reaches for you, reaching for that famed loyalty and kindness in the form of your hand and your words as seems to have become her instinct, but you snatch the former away as soon as her fingers touch it and don't use the latter at all for two days—except to say in that moment, clearly and quietly:

"I  _hate_  you."


End file.
